CURATED COLLECTIBLES
Lot 231:
A set of four Van Keppel-Green modern iron sconces circa 1950s. Hendrik Van Keppel and Taylor Green were both born in 1914 in California. In their lifetime they would create one of the most influential industrial design firms by the name of Van Keppel-Green. The origins of their work began with Hendrik when he was living in San Francisco in the 1930s. He designed a chair made of scrap iron he had fabricated by a blacksmith and that he wrapped with marine cord he purchased in the Embarcadero. This work was his first documented effort to bridge nature with architecture by creating a prototype of his indoor/outdoor furniture, and in the history of industrial design was a pivotal and revolutionary accomplishment. After Hendrik moved to Los Angeles in 1937, and met Taylor, they originally worked together on Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles, but moved in 1939 to Beverly Hills. In the early days they were a couple, but at some point they became business partners yet maintained an extremely close personal friendship/business partnership based on testimony from friends, and lived together with respective boyfriends in the same houses until the business closed in the early 1970s. They had a series of shops in Beverly Hills until the late 1960s when an I.M. Pei building displaced them and they opened shop in Santa Monica, dubbed the Country Store. In their shops they sold their own designs as well as accessories from other designers, notably Architectural Pottery, as they were personal friends with Max and Rita Lawrence. Each sconce measures 10” H x 2” W.
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